The city is going to face shortage of water, as Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has disconnected electricity supply to Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) for not paying outstanding dues of Rs 6.8 billion. The company had failed to receive its dues even after repeatedly disconnection of power supply to the board in the past.
The current disconnection of electricity is likely to cause a serious shortage of water for the crisis hit masses of the metropolis. According to sources the disconnection occurred at 2.00 pm on Wednesday after a decision of companys management to take action against Water board. The lack of co-ordination between the two organisations has nothing but affecting the crisis-hit people of the city who are facing the unending electricity loadshedding as well as shortage of water.
Reacting the electricity disconnection, Moeen Khan Vice Chairman KWSB, said that this was an anti-public step taken by the company as only Water Board was being targeted while KESC was not doing the same against other departments which have dues collectively over Rs 96 billion. As KWSB also has Rs 6 billion of dues over the federal government, which was decided to be adjusted with the dues it owed to KESC, in a meeting held in the Ministry of Finance, six months back at Islamabad. The notice after the decision was also issued on November 19 2008, he added.
Besides that, Sindh Government also owed Rs 2 billion to KWSB making the total dues over the two governments Rs 8 billion, he said adding that if these had received by the board it would have paid the companys dues.
KWSB, he said, if the dues had adjusted, would have received its receivables of around Rs 520 million as extra amount after the adjustment. "We are being charged around Rs 220 million as average billing by the company despite repeated complains to charge all its housing societies individually," he said adding that the company had also billed the board Rs 800 million as surcharges with GST.
He said, due to the hours long power outages, KWSB had to install more power generators to maintain the water supply to the citizens, spending billions on furnace oil. He said: "the company has also ignored our request for exempting the pumping stations from any loadshedding as according the water supply schedule, if an area is not supplied water in the given time and date it would get the same after at least 14 days.
Talking to Business Recorder, Khan said that as the board has spent Rs 30 billion on the installation of water and sewerage lines in different areas of the city it was facing financial crisis. "We can pay the dues only after receiving our receivables from federal and provincial governments," he added.
However, Faraz Ahmed, Spokesman of KESC said, as a first step, the company had only disconnected the power supply to the KWSB headquarter. While all zonal offices or pumping stations were not disconnected to save the people from any water shortage. He said this was decided after failure of payment of the dues by KWSB despite repeated notices being issued by the company.